


pick me up, hose me down

by xolotia



Category: Ensemble Stars! (Video Game)
Genre: M/M, Mika Panics And Fucking Dies, Panic Attacks, i still dont know how to tag, if i can write him in situations where he's too tired to function, mika crawls into shu's bed and they cuddle at the end, rated t 4 some language, shu is soft and fluffy and Not Himself, this isn't even good and it took me the whole day to make goodbye, why should i learn how to write shu
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-14
Updated: 2020-05-14
Packaged: 2021-03-02 22:35:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,546
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24174469
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/xolotia/pseuds/xolotia
Summary: His pulse is rushing, but this time, it's for an entirely different reason.alt title: mika has a panic attack and is Gay
Relationships: Itsuki Shuu/Kagehira Mika
Comments: 16
Kudos: 95





	pick me up, hose me down

**Author's Note:**

> hi umm this started off good but the ending i kinda rushed it cuz its 10 almost 11 pm and i wanna get this done so  
> here  
> the idea popped into my head last night at like 2 am bc i was having a panic attack and i was like What If I Comfort Myself Like This so this is a thing now  
> unoriginal concept gang
> 
> title taken from chris garneau's dirty night clowns

He wakes up in a cold sweat. He’s hot, but he’s shaking. His whole body is wracked with tremors and no matter what, his thoughts won’t leave him alone. His heart is racing. His eyes are wide and tears line the corners, threatening to spill out, but they never do. He feels like he’s floating, disconnected from the world, yet nauseous at the same time. He grabs onto the blanket, and he can feel it there, but it’s out of his reach as well. When he brings it up to cover his legs, it feels like nothing is on top of him, but he feels the warmth of it on him and immediately throws it off, being overheated. His breathing is uneven and he’s hyperventilating, and it feels like a vine with thorns poking out from every inch is constricting around his lungs like a boa. He sits up, grabs his chest, and can’t even manage to croak out the tiniest sound.

Mika is well aware of what’s happening. He’s so familiar with the feeling that he couldn’t forget about it if he tried. Sleepless nights at the orphanage when he was young often led to intrusive thoughts and then his body had a mind of its own. Suddenly he was just suffering. He thought of getting up to tell someone, but he couldn’t stand up no matter how much he forced his legs to move. Being that age and not knowing what was happening only made the panic in his mind worse and his heart beat faster and faster until he felt like he was going to die if he couldn’t do anything. So he laid in a more comfortable position, thinking he could go back to sleep and that would help. He couldn’t sleep until an ungodly hour of the night and woke up feeling like death itself.

Those experiences only became more common as Mika grew up since nearly every Tuesday night he would lie awake trembling and wondering what the hell went wrong in his life. Mika didn’t know how to stop it, so he just let it pass as he lay awake in agony staring at any object in the surrounding room. Finally one night he gathered up the smallest bits of courage he had in himself and told his adoptive family what was happening to him. They took him to see a professional and he was diagnosed shortly after with a form of anxiety: panic disorder. He was given a bottle of medication and was told he could refill it whenever he ran out, and that he would need these pills for the rest of his life.

The thing is, though, that Mika’s parents heard about the jobs he took up to help with Valkyrie's funding and told him to use part of that money to pay for it himself. They stopped renewing his prescription and Mika didn’t use those funds for anything but Valkyrie. This night was the first night of Mika being without his pills, and tonight felt like he was bathing in hellfire with Lucifer himself.

Mika never knew what would make him feel better when he had these panic attacks. You’d think after going through it so much he would figure out something that comforted him, that lulled him into a peaceful sleep after he was dying from the inside. He never could figure it out. He looked to the clock on the bedside table; 3:32 AM. He thought over his choices for his next course of action. It was either “do what ya always did before,” or “go wake up Oshi-san.”

Now, the first was not the best idea. Mika didn’t want to wake up feeling like shit and have Shu question his every move. The latter wasn’t the best idea either. Thinking about what might happen if he dared to wake Shu made his stomach churn and Mika wanted to crawl into a hole at the thought that it might become a reality. What if Shu thought him broken beyond repair? What if he decided he didn’t need a doll that was this defected and got rid of him? Threw him out and left him for some other person to take him?

Mika was used to not being wanted and disliked because of the way he was. It took him a while to get adopted and he always assumed it was because of his mismatched eyes. His eyes that made him appear like a freak to everyone around him and turned them off from talking to him. His eyes that he himself hated. He saw the sweet kids with no imperfections come and go and they always got picked by families. The parents that came in took one glance at him and Mika could swear that they grimaced or made some form of a displeased face. It was okay, though, he felt that way towards himself too.

If Shu threw him out onto the street, he knew nobody would pick him up then. Passersby would think him just a homeless delinquent that had nothing better to do than to sit on the curb with his hands folded in his lap and stare off into space. 

Besides, nobody wanted a defected toy, right? Little girls at the store only like the prettiest of dolls, the perfect ones that had no flaws whatsoever. They liked the cutest stuffed animals with matching eyes that shined like the sun and brought hope and love into the saddest of human beings. Mika was not a pretty, perfect doll. He was not a cute stuffed animal with matching eyes. He was a failure, a useless, sad excuse for a doll that couldn’t accomplish the simplest of tasks without some form of help from someone else far more capable than he could ever dream of being.

But what if Shu didn’t think he was a freak? What if he didn’t throw him out and instead had sympathy, pulled him closer into his arms, and told him everything was going to be okay? Would he do that? Would Shu be willing to wake up at 3 AM and pet Mika’s hair because Mika was dumb enough not to buy more pills that he had to be on to function properly? Mika didn’t know, and it was the 50/50 (read: 99/01) chance that Shu would do the former that freaked him out. Mika had half a mind to go into Shu’s room and crawl into his bed to see what would happen, but the other part of him wanted him to just suck it up and lay back down. That’s what he had done for the entirety of his life up until those pills, and he was still alive. He would be fine, right?

Right?

\---

This is a horrible idea. Why did he decide to do this? Right now, Mika was standing in front of Shu’s door with a shaking hand positioned in front of the doorknob. His mind was screaming at him to go back to his room, but his heart was telling him to open the door. He looked down the hallway toward his room, then back at Shu’s door. Hallway, door.

Fuck it.

Mika put his hand on the doorknob and slowly turned it. He pushed slightly and the door moved open. It was only open a crack, and Mika’s heart was already pounding in his ears. He was thinking about just giving up and shutting it, but his hands wouldn’t listen. He peeked through the part of the door that was open and looked toward Shu’s bed.

On it, obviously, was Shu, sleeping peacefully. He was turned on his side, back facing the door. Mika slowly crept into his room and was sure to close the door behind him quietly. He tiptoed closer to the bed and crouched with his hands on the sheets, like a child peering over a counter watching their mother cook. He looked over every part of Shu. The small part of his back showing where his shirt had ridden up, the silhouette of his shoulder blades, his hair where the moon shone elegantly on it through the window. Every part of him was perfect. He was perfect. Mika wanted nothing more than to be able to call that man his. He wanted to be the one to be all fluffy and domesticated with him. God, it’s like Shu was a completely different lifeform. Not human, just… something else. Something better.

Just looking at Shu like this was enough to slightly calm Mika down, and he was contemplating not bothering Shu and going back to his own room. But then he remembered the thoughts he gets when he’s alone, so he reconsidered. He was in here for a reason, right? Right. He didn’t walk in here just to stare at Shu sleeping, no, that would just be creepy.

With shaky legs, Mika stood up from his crouched position and gently sat down on the mattress. He didn’t want to wake Shu up, just sleeping next to him would be enough. Holding in his breath for a bit, then sighing quietly once he heard no movement behind him, he relaxed slightly.

“...Kagehira..?”

Mika immediately stiffened up. He didn’t want to turn around, no, he couldn’t. He couldn’t face Shu now. He’d have to run away. This is the kind of embarrassment that’ll take 50 years off of his life. He’ll-

“-hira. Kagehira. Are you listening to me? Or are you already asleep sitting up?”

Now Mika _had_ to answer. 

“‘m not a-asleep, Oshi-san,” Great. His voice wavered. Mika heard a sigh and shuffling behind him.

“I don’t have the energy to scold you right now, but why are you up at 3 in the morning?” Shu’s voice still had that rumble from when he was sleeping, and to Mika, it was like he was in heaven, and god himself just came down to greet him.

“U-uh…,” he had to come up with a lie fast, else Shu would catch on and Mika would be dead. “I… couldn’t sleep. Y-yeah, I couldn’t fall asleep, an’ I thought sleepin’ nex’ ta ya would help me, y’see?”

Please buy it. Please buy it.

“You know those lies won’t work on me, Kagehira,” Shu’s response made Mika’s heart sink to his stomach. “Is there something troubling you that you had to lie to me?”

Well, one thing was for sure: Mika’s cover was blown. 

“‘s fine, Oshi-san. ‘s dumb anyway,” Mika sniffled. Damn, he was starting to cry. He silently hoped that Shu didn’t hear that.

“I doubt it’s dumb if it’s keeping you up at this hour,” Shu whispered, almost like to himself.

Mika finally allowed himself to look back at Shu, though no doubt his eyes are still glossy from the tears he’s holding back. Mika doesn’t regret it at all, though, because the sight he got was an extremely rare one. There was Shu, sitting with his eyes closed, head pointed down, lightly flushed on his cheeks. He looked up and Mika snapped his head away. Shu cleared his throat.

“Are you going to tell me the real reason you decided to crawl into my bed? Or should we talk about it in the morning?” He said. That was certainly not the response Mika was expecting.

“‘f yer okay with stayin’ up a bit…,” Mika whispered. What the hell was he saying? Of course Shu would want to go directly back to sleep.

“If it gets whatever it is off of your mind, I don’t care,” Shu said, putting his hand on Mika’s shoulder.

Mika flinched a bit, and Shu pulled his hand away. Mika turned around to look at the empty spot on the mattress below him. Shu must’ve scooted over. Mika looked up at Shu, and found that he was also looking at the empty spot, then back up at Mika, but then immediately his eyes flew back to the mattress. Mika took this as a hint and laid down next to Shu. He kept looking down at his hands, not knowing how to tell Shu “I had a panic attack and I love you so I thought that I should sleep next to you and we should cuddle.”

“S-so, y’know how some people…,” Mika started. How some people what exactly? He didn’t even have a full sentence and he just started talking. “...have… to take pills ‘n stuff so they’ll be okay?” Mika hoped that got the point across. All he gained was an “mm” from Shu.

The next part scared him the most. He didn’t know how Shu would react, but he already started and he can’t leave him in the dark. “‘m one of those people, Oshi-san.”

Silence. Dread set in inside of Mika and he was about to cry until he heard Shu’s voice. It was… strange, how gentle it was. How quiet he was. There was only care in his tone as he looked over at Mika. 

“Did you run out?” he said. Mika didn’t know if it was because he was falling back asleep or if he just wanted to be _so damn attractive_ , but Shu’s eyes were half-lidded and a hand of his reached up to play with a loose strand of Mika’s messy hair.

Mika was grateful that the moonlight wasn’t hitting his face so Shu couldn’t see the blush that had spread on his cheeks. “A-ah- y-yeah… s-so I wasn’t real… okay, I guess,” he answered.

“What happened? I mean, what are the pills for?” Shu asked another question, his eyelashes fluttering gently and setting Mika’s nerves on fire. He was being unusually sweet, but Mika just brushed it off as the fatigue setting into him.

“O-oh, uh-,” Mika scolded himself in his head to stop being such a stuttering mess. But then again, when someone like Shu was looking at him like that, what else could he do? “...panickin’... ‘n stuff. Y-y’know, l-like anxiety…” He mumbled.

“Can we talk about this later, Oshi-san? ‘m kinda tired…,” Mika yawned, closing his eyes and turning around on his side to face Shu. Shu moved his hand away from Mika’s hair and instead put it under his pillow in between them. He hummed in response to Mika’s question and pulled the blanket up over both of them.

“Well, goodnight then, Kagehira. Unless you need something else?” Shu said, his voice low.

“Can I…,” Mika started, and he reached his hand forward out to Shu. Shu moved closer, assuming Mika wanted to cuddle him. That was extremely unlike him, but he needed that sort of thing right now. Mika probably did too, so he’s doing it for both of them. More so for Mika than anything, but he’d never admit that. At least, not out loud.

Mika wrapped his arm around Shu’s back, just below his shoulder blades. In return, Shu put an arm around Mika’s waist and pulled him closer, nuzzling into his hair. He could swear that Mika gave a small noise of affection, but he was tired, so maybe his ears were playing tricks on him. Hopefully not. When he was sure Mika was asleep, he pressed a soft kiss to the top of his head.

“Good night,” he whispered.

“Sleep well, Mika.”

**Author's Note:**

> hi i. Do Not Know how to write shu so  
> uh  
> yeah
> 
> scream at me on twt if u want ig: @pourtheglass  
> im not too active on there so.,,,,, just dm me and ask for my ig if u want  
> ok bye im tired


End file.
